"Shake Down EP"

Sometimes, keeping it simple is best. There's nothing particularly clever or innovative about the two tracks Niccolo Detti supplies on his own Recline Music label here, but both are absolutely guaranteed to rock a peaktime house floor.

Modular Life is up first. It's a hard track to pin down, this one: it's got a little bit of Moroder in its veins, a little bit of acid, a little bit of tech-house strut, a touch of the hypnotic qualities of the best prog, and a little of the off-kilter playfulness of a Carter or Sneak track. It's a damn fine straight-up house record, in other words. The title track itself comes on the flip, and this one's a bit easier to talk about - it really couldn't be much more Plastic Dreams-y unless Nicco changed his name to Jaydee and signed to R&S! But the combination of that classic organ throb and the insistent looped, spoken vocal again has an entrancing, hypnotic quality that makes it a dead cert for slightly pre- or post-peaktime play.

Sounding classic and contemporary at the same time, this EP is something of a must-check for anyone else who thinks that if it ain't broke, you don't need to be fixing it! That said, if pushed then the slightly more individual-sounding Modular Life has to be the pick for yours truly.